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Topic: SpaceX customers' views on reuse (Read 97831 times)

I’m sorry, I completely missed the last couple of posts, my apologies.

I’ve tried doing the re-use dates in bold in the first post. I haven’t put the names in bold as well due to the extra width it would use. Not sure if I’m happy with the result or not, but at least I think the re-use entries stand out more!

Maybe highlighting 1st reuse, 2nd reuse, etc. in 'Event' column would not mess with formatting but still raise visibility.

« Last Edit: 01/25/2018 04:35 PM by AncientU »

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"If we shared everything [we are working on] people would think we are insane!"-- SpaceX friend of mlindner

Availability of Block 5, customer early acceptance, and Khrunichev's quality problems have created the perfect storm:

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Russia’s Proton rocket falls on hard times

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After 53 years in service, the main Russian launcher is running out of customers.

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The Proton rocket, Russia’s primary commercial launch vehicle, faces a life-and-death struggle to remain a competitive player on the international launch market, industry sources say. The veteran Soviet space rocket has spent nearly a quarter of a century as the vehicle of choice for operators of communications satellites all over the world. But it has fallen to near-irrelevance in just a matter of two years. After reaching a peak of 12 launches in 2010, the Proton is now staring at a real possibility of flying just a couple of missions this year and not delivering a single commercial payload.

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All these technical, political, and financial problems combined to leave GKNPTs Khrunichev deeply in debt and triggered the exodus of customers last year—as many as five deals were reportedly lost in the second half of 2017.

I do wonder how many reflights the most reflown booster will get.I think it's a moderately safe bet that it'll be over two, especially given Ms Shotwells 'ten reflights with minimal refurbishment'.

This could really slash the number of cores needed while waiting for BFR/S.

If they manage five reflights on one core, and have 17 new B5 cores made, that's ~80 launches banked, easily enough to get to at least prototype BFS without manufacturing more, or flying >5 times. That is, make more through 2018, fly reused only in 2019 on, with the exception of crew - perhaps.

For the last four flights of 2017 and first four of 2018 (assuming that includes FH Demo), there will have been seven reused cores out of the ten cores flown... so we are already operating in the >50% mode. 10 months after first reflight!!!

The serial full duration tests of the JCSAT-14 booster at McGregor let me think about this. We are getting near to proof that the landed boosters are all capable of reflight. I move a reply in the SpaceX Manifest Updates and Discussion Thread 4 here because it is not appropriate there. I argue that contracts signed today for new boosters will not delay the transition. They can and will be renegotiated.

There is not going to be any sudden rush to buy reused cores, especially before one has flown.

.................

Let's give SpaceX a chance to actually qualify a booster for reflight and their customers a chance to get comfortable with the idea before we start assuming everything will suddenly start flying on reused cores.

Absolutely true, I agree. But I would bet (just a phrase, I don't bet) that in 2019 most launches will be on reused boosters including contracts already signed for new ones. The contracts will be renegotiated with reusable prices. By that time they will probably have enough cores in store that they don't need to build new ones before the Falcon family is phased out.

While Musk takes a lot of credit for his vision, in Shotwell he found the perfect executive to run SpaceX like a finely oiled machine. She is one of the most admired and respected executives in our industry, and an inspiration for young women around the world.